Hello everyone,
Lots of news to report so today is a special movie news update.
I’m going to talk about the box office after the weekend as usual, but the movie theaters and studios are VERY EXCITED with “Barbie” making approx. $22.3 million in Thursday night previews and estimated to make up to $70 million today. Thursday nights box office is the highest for 2023 (so far) and if todays estimates are correct it will also be the highest opening day since 2021 “Spider Man No Way Home” TWO YEARS AGO. “Oppenheimer” is also doing fairly well although way below what “Barbie” is making. Thursday night shows made approx. $10.5 million and todays take is estimated to be up to $35 million (almost exactly half of “Barbie”). Plus, “Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1” and “Sound of Freedom” are both still doing pretty well and both will pass $100 million domestic by the end of this weekend.
Speaking of “Oppenheimer”. The HUGE IMAX 70MM film print of the movie is so large and so heavy they had to make a new system to control the film playing through the projector. Some people compare the new controls to a “Palm Pilot software”.
By the way, I saw the movie in IMAX 70mm film last night. If you’re going to see it I STRONGLY RECOMMEND seeing it soon. After 2 showings, the film print already had quite a bit of dust. Dust often leads to scratches.
Lots of bad news for AMC recently. First, there was a “brutal fight” over reserved seats at an AMC Theater in Florida on July 10 (they didn’t disclose what movie it was). A 63 year old man asked someone to move from their reserved seats which led to the younger man hitting him with “several hard blows to the face”. Police are still looking for the attacker.
Second, it appears that AMC tiered pricing – depending on where the seat is located – has failed so AMC discontinued it. They tested it at 3 locations and said that people don’t want to sit very close to the screen even if the ticket prices are lower. Instead, their NEW idea is “different type of spacious front row seating – with extensive seat recline” in the seats closest to the screen. Most people think they keep testing this because most theaters sell the rows closest to the screen after every other seat is sold out.
Third, a judge rejected AMCs plan to convert preferred equity into common stock after some AMC shareholders sued them over it. This ruling led to a surge in AMC stock prices today.
One last note, at ComicCon in San Diego they announced that the long awaited “Borderlands” movie (which Lionsgate first announced at CinemaCon OVER A YEAR AGO in 2022) will be released over a year from now in August 2024.
Little bit of humor….
WAYYYYY back before the internet and cellphones, this is how you would find out showtimes for a movie. You looked at ads like this in the newspaper and you hoped that the showtimes were correct (sometimes they weren’t).
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 